Jeffrey Allen: Survey Finds Mixed Race Is America's New Standard of Beauty; African-American Women More Confident Than White Women

Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights

African-American and white women have spend insane amounts of money to look like each other, when, according to an interesting survey by Allure Magazine, 64 percent of people think that mixed race women represent the epitome of beauty.

America has gone biracial.

What is most illuminating about this survey is that the overwhelming shift in perceptions of beauty in the last 20 years has shifted away from what are typically white characteristics -- pale skin, slender physiques, smaller breasts and hips -- to the curvy, sun-kissed beauty of multi-ethnic women.

According to the survey, 70 percent of those who wish to change their skin color wanted it to be darker, and 74 percent believe that a curvier body type is more appealing now than it has been over the past 10 years.

America's fascination with skin color is nothing new. There was a time when pale skin was required to be considered a lady because true ladies didn't expose their porcelain skin to the sun. Conversely, the dark skin of slave women were considered evidence of their inferiority and their forced time in the fields.

Now, white women spend countless hours in tanning booths across the U.S., attempting to simulate melanin. Even with plastic surgeries done to mimic the breasts and buttocks of ethnic women, according to the survey, white women are still more likely to want to change their bodies and feel less attractive than their significant others.

While there are some who may feel that the shift is purely aesthetic, I beg to differ.

In my opinion, what this shift represents is a manifestation of the oversexed perception of black women in the media, blended with the traditional definition of white women as pure and innocent.

In other words, the white represents the "lady," and the multi-ethnic represents the "freak."

Every man's dream woman, right?

Gloria Steinem makes the provocative argument that whatever a 'superior' group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever an 'inferior' group has will be used to justify its plight.

Though the survey suggests that both Hispanic and African-American women have more confidence than white women, one only has to look at the images we are bombarded with on a daily basis to see that all women are prone to being insecure.

African-American women have begun a disheartening quest to become caricatures of themselves, as they attempt to "outblack" white women by getting surgeries to enlarge their already enviable figures.

Butt injections and breast implants are no longer the exceptions, they are the norm, as women continue to fight against nature to become every man's ideal of the perfect woman.

It is important that women, regardless of color, learn to love ourselves and the skin we're in. We don't need a survey to tell us we're beautiful. We don't need blond hair or big butts to be beautiful. We don't need big breasts or brown skin to be sexy. Confidence in ourselves is one standard of beauty that will never go out of style and we all have the ability to possess it.

Though self-love is universal, I would be at a loss if I did not take a moment to empower my sisters.

As the media onslaught against African-American women continues, from our median income being zero, to our children being born out of wedlock, to our wombs being labeled dangerous, the Allure article tap dances around the central finding of this survey:

African-American women have changed the face of beauty in American culture, and while it is obvious that there are women who want to be us, we must again revel in the satisfaction of simply being ourselves.